


Cursed by a Rose

by thelittlewolf



Category: Beauty and the Beast (1991), Beauty and the Beast (2017), Beauty and the Beast - All Media Types
Genre: AU beauty and the beast, F/M, Other
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-11-27
Updated: 2019-11-26
Packaged: 2021-02-26 03:39:55
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,447
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21576949
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thelittlewolf/pseuds/thelittlewolf
Summary: The story of a funny girl who tamed a Beast.
Relationships: Beast/Belle (Disney)
Kudos: 5





	Cursed by a Rose

Once upon a time, there lived an artist named Maurice. Loved among the lower ranking nobility for his portraits, he often was sought after whenever noble families visited Paris. One family in particular had a young daughter named Chloe. Captivated by her beauty, Maurice spent a great deal of time with the family, painting portraits. However, her aged father was cruel, cold, and brutish. His son, set to inherit the title and the modest estate that the family owned was equally as violent and degrading to his siblings. Particularly after a night of heavy drink.

There came a crisp, spring night with the moon bright enough to illuminate the cobbled streets where the artist’s life took a drastic, different turn than he could have predicted. A frantic knock banged on his door while he sat by his warm fireplace cleaning his various, used brushes from the day. Upon answering, he found Chloe distraught, frightened, and with a blooming black eye to match the blooming bruises he saw blossoming on her skin beneath the torn sleeves of her dress. His affections immediately stepped into action, welcoming her in and carefully tending to her wounds as she sobbed. Her father had arranged a marriage off to an old colleague of his who was a known drunkard and more than thirty years her senior. When she had made a slight vocal objection to the match, her brother had stepped in and unleashed his fury upon her. Having nowhere else to go and having no one else she felt that she could trust, she fled to Maurice’s simple home in the city.

The artist hid her there with him for days, giving her the safe haven that she needed, despite believing his own affections to simply be one-sided. As time went on, her family’s search for their youngest daughter became more dire and Maurice knew that staying in the heart of Paris would put Chloe in danger. His heart dreaded the mere thought of having to part with her and send her away to live in the country-side, but for her safety and sake, it was a pain he would be willing to endure as long as he was able to do so with the knowledge that she would be free and happy. To his happy surprise, it was Chloe who had begged him not to make her part from his side, for to do so would cause her very own heart to break.

With their standing affections and love now mutually expressed, they wed in secret, saving her from her family’s intended future for her, and in compromise, they moved to the outskirts of the city, choosing to live in an old windmill. Maurice continued to sell his paintings and sketches in the city, allowing them to live comfortably, despite being without luxury. As a year passed, they welcomed a daughter to their happy, little family, naming her Belle.

However, as with all stories, tragedy struck as the plague swept through France. At first, the little family with their infant daughter had thought themselves safe on the outskirts of the city, but as weeks passed, it was Chloe who fell victim to the plague. With the knowledge that her own life was already lost, she pleaded with her husband to do the one thing that she had long ago begged to not do: leave her. Fearing for the life of her beloved and their tiny daughter, she begged him to leave and save themselves before they all became doomed to share the same fate. Only because of the love he held for their precious daughter, Maurice left his wife in the place that they had turned into a home, leaving his heart behind in the process.

The artist grabbed only what he could carry in a single bag before lifting young Belle from her hand-crafted cradle, fleeing into the night. The grieving father bartered for a ride out of the city, spending the next three days in the company of a simple farmer from a village only a day and a half’s ride from Paris. The farmer, taking pity on the man and his plight, offered him shelter in exchange for simple work around his house. The farmer’s wife, who was barren, was almost excited at having guests and a child that she could nurse and care for while Maurice settled and planned a new life for himself and his daughter.

The small family lived with the farmer and his wife until Belle turned the age of four, at which time, Maurice decided that is was time that they were sufficiently ready to begin living their own life. Having learned the skills of a farmer, the artist and his daughter travelled east, seeking out a new town to settle in. Belle was excited at the change and chance for adventure. However, her father’s unsettled and need to keep his daughter safe from harm lead them to lead a far more transitory life than either of them could have predicted.

After living for a few months in that particular small village, a band of gypsies visited for a few days on their travels. Belle, out and about with her father for the day, was excited for today had been the day that her father had promised to buy her not only her very own book, but her very first one, with the fellow promise beginning to teach her to read, rather than simply read to her as he had every night before putting her to bed. Belle, knowing of the unrest in Paris due to the gypsies was curious about them with the childlike innocence of youth. Taking advantage of a moment of her father’s distraction, and as the fruit of an accident, the little girl received a rather ominous and exciting fortune as a lovely gypsy lady read her palm.

“You will live a long and happy life. But it will not be easy. You will experience much adventure. But remember this, my child. Adventure is where you find it, and the true spirit of adventure lives only within your own heart. You must let it out by opening your mind.”

Excited and enthralled by the promise, the little girl asked for more. The gypsy chuckled, and looked over Belle’s palm again, studying it far more attentively this time with growing fascination at a pattern in her palm that represented a castle with great, gleaming spires and towers however, before the woman could remark on the only castle she knew of that was similar to the one she had seen, Belle’s father in a frantic frenzy panicked and dragged his daughter away.

It wasn’t long after that encounter that the pair moved once again, seeking out another small town to settle in. Belle didn’t mind, however. She continued to read and help her father begin and maintain a small farm beside their little cottage while he also continued to paint and sketch, capturing the changes his daughter went through as she grew up, immortalizing them on paper. Every few years, once again, they would pack up, eventually acquiring a cart and a horse whom Belle adored named Phillipe, and they would set off for a new province in the heart of France, and a new, small village to settle in. However, no matter where they went, Maurice always ensure to bring the one thing that he had managed to save and carry with him since that fateful night when he and his infant daughter fled the dying city of Paris: a painting. It was a portrait of his dear wife and his daughter shortly after her birth. Eventually, he had been able to have it properly framed, but he always made sure that it accompanied them wherever they moved to, so that even though Belle’s mother was no longer with them, they could still keep a piece of her there, certain to always watch over the tiny family.

As more years passed, Belle grew more and more lovely, surpassing the beauty of even her mother. However, she paid vanity no mind, for she had developed a passion that she could carry with her. She had learned a love of reading, and no matter what her day entailed, she was rarely found without a book in hand. However, her most beloved book was still that very one that her father had bought just for her as a child, for it was the only solace and escape that she found from the growing monotony of repetition of each day in her poor provincial town, where every day started at the stroke of eight with the people all waking up to say…

“Bonjour!”


End file.
